Is Charity Peace Oil Really the Best Way to Help the Middle East?

We are increasingly interested, in these days of charity goat-giving, in small-scale ways of helping the world, and if we can snag something nice for ourselves into the bargain, so much the better. Hence the increasing success of Peace Oil, an initiative of the Charities Advisory Trust, which claims to get Jews, Arabs, Druze and Bedouin working together in harmony.

It's an inspired name. If there is something we all want to come out of the Middle East, it is peace - even if we're not sure quite how this oil is to be poured on troubled waters. The website helps - but only up to a point. "Peace Oil® encourages cooperation between communities. By helping to market their produce it hopes to bring economic prosperity to such enterprises ..." How exactly this works is unclear. "Profits from Peace Oil®," it adds, "are used to support peace and reconciliation work in the Middle East." Impressive claim, but again - how, exactly? The website, counting on our goodwill, does not elaborate.

Hilary Blume, director of the Charities Advisory Trust, says that at least £1 from the sale of each bottle goes towards a project suggested by a recent film, A Slim Peace, in which 14 women from the various communities - settlers, Arab Israelis, Bedouins, Palestinians - got together to lose weight. "Prejudices were shed as the pounds were shed," says Blume, who believes that getting people - especially women - to talk to each other is the way forward. Four pilot groups of 16 women each have been established; stitch'n'bitch groups are planned. Although it is only a year or so old, the project - if not its participants - is starting small.

What about cooperation? Peace Oil is produced in the foothills of the Carmel mountains in Israel, on 400 acres of land farmed by Amos Strauss, a Jewish farmer. He has four staff (18 in the high season), all of whom are Arab or Bedouin - so not exactly equal then; rather, a reinforcing of the status quo. Blume argues, stoutly, that this is the way it is on all farms, and they are fairly treated. The olives are pressed at a Druze press owned by a local sheik.

There is Palestinian involvement - Peace Oil for cooking is 50% Palestinian, from the West Bank; oil produced by three Palestinian farmers is mixed with Strauss' oil and shipped from his farm. Yet various groups, including Jews for Justice for Palestinians, and the Inter-Faith Group for Morally Responsible Investment, have criticized Peace Oil for grabbing profile and shelf space that could have gone to Palestinian cooperatives. They particularly cite Zaytoun (zaytoun.org), which sells olive oil produced by collectives and farmers who face major hurdles - land repossession, checkpoints, the new barrier - getting their produce to market. They are not asking for the demotion of Peace Oil, but equal billing at least. It seems fitting. Otherwise the latter could be in danger of undermining the very aims it espouses.